gonna try

[TSquare]

I went to my lfs today and lo and behold, they had a tank of farm raised horses. I like this small lfs and have done business with them. The horses were quite vivacious and readily ate frozen mysis. The only caveat, they are very young...two maybe two and one half inches snout to tail. My tank is relatively young, cycled and tons of rock, but no inhabitants as of yet.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Terri

[123456]

Well...if they are eating frozen mysis then you are off to a good start. Watch the parameters of your water, you said your tank is young and I dont know how big or how many horses you added so just make sure you didnt add too much of a bioload at once. Other than that, did you have any specific questions?

amanda

[Will]

if you think you're up for the challange, go for it! make sure you get the brand of mysis that they're eating to make the transition a bit easier. their size isn't incredibly small; FFE usually sends out horses that are not much larger. what's the current like in your tank? less is more with seahorses, but stagnant is bad bad bad. do you by any chance know what species they are? i'd guess erecuts; they're commonly farm raised. make sure to get at least two.. a male/female pair isn't really required. i'm guessing you've done a bit of background research, yes? try doing a little reading through these threads or threads on seahorse.org for help and post any questions you need answered. it's always great to find farm-raised horses, so as the romans would say, carpe diem!! :p
fourhand2

[TSquare]

Thansk for the replies guys! I can tell you that they are from the brazilian variety, or so thinks the shhop owner. I have a 65 high. That is why my mind drifts back to seahorses. I do love reef tanks, but seahorses stop me dead in my tracks...if you get my drift. The current is not that strong, but there is current throughout the tank....it is running on an Eheim 2217. I do have a very small power head in there, but very close to the surface for surafce movement.

79 degrees
1.025 SG
8.0-8.2 pH
0 ammo
0 nitrite
>20 nitrates....
PC lighting


After the tank finished its cycle, I did a water change and I think I am ready to go!

I posted in new to the hobby about a small outbreak of brown algae...but looks even better today...probably new tank stuff and diatoms.

Thanks again!

Terri

[Will]

all sounds great! if they are brazilians, they're Hippocampus reidi. a great species! what colors are they? if they're bright orange, yellow, or red then they probably are reidis. that brown algae is normal. have you got a skimmer? the only thing i'd say to work on in your tank is those nitrates. i know they're a pain, but a skimmer should help out a bit.. water changes are a panacea for anything like that, too. let us know when you get the seahorses and please get at least two. they're so much happier in pairs!
fourhand2

[TSquare]

Well, I did it, and things were looking pretty darn good for a while...that seems to have changed. Here's the story. I have the 65 that finshed cycling. I have an eclipse 12 high that was cycling at the same time. What possessed me to start two tanks at one time is beyond me....but, I did. The two horses were doing great in the 65..lot of live rock, yellowhead jawfish, marg. snails. THEN, I think the trouble started. It seems to me to be a large tank for such little horses. One in particular liked to hang out close to the substrate. It never ocurred to me that little hermit crabs could "catch" the tiny little tail of a seahorse lounging in the substrate, or did I realize it would want to. When I came home tonight, the little female of the pair had an injury on her tail and did not look so good. Since the eclipse had cycled I immediately removed both horses and transferred them to the 12 high. She does not look well and is not accepting food. The other horse iseating; however, that one is a little larger. It is sad. She is listless. She ate the frozen mysis in the 65 high, but preferred to hunt pods over being fed mysis.

We shall see how things work out. The only thing I am concerned about in the eclipse is the "waterfall" effect the water return has. There is a little more current in the lower levels of the tank than the larger one. Perhaps someone has an idea of how to diffuse the spout returning the water. For what it is worth, I had removed the wheel and replaced that area with LR rubble for the water to flow over. It has a DSB and LR in the tank as well.

Sg 1.025
pH 8.3
~78 degrees
less than 10 nitrate
0 ammo
0 nitrite

There is nothing else in the tank at all with the horses....not even snails.

All suggestions welcome. I always kept on moving when I saw seahorses because I knew of the potential problems, but with captive raised I thought the story would play out little differently.

Thank you,
Terri

[Leslie]

Hi Terry,

Where is the water level on that 12g Eclipse?

I have kept those size horses and smaller in the 3g and 6g Eclipses and the flow was fine as long as the tank was filled as close to the top as possible..... the waterfall effect is greatly minimized with the tank topped up. Great idea the LR ruble where the bio wheel was! I usually put some in the area where the carbon cartridge sits.

How does her tail look? Is the skin intact? Is it swollen or discolored? Keep a real close eye on her.

You can try putting Neosporin Ointment on it 2 to 3x a day to prevent an infection. Keeping her head in the water, pat her tail dry with a clean paper towel. Dab a small amount of Neosporin ointment on the bruised area with a q tip.

If she isn't interested in frozen right now try tempting her with some live foods......enriched bs, or the red Hawaiian feeder shrimp available from Ocean Rider.

If the horses are Brazilian they are likely not CB. The only commercial breeder of reidi that I am aware of at this time is Ocean Rider. Their reidi are only available online through Ocean Rider. The LFSs here in the US are getting their CB seahorses from 2 sources......a LA wholesaler called Sea Dwelling Creatures and an aquaculture farm in Florida called Ocean, Reefs and Aquariums.

Sea Dwelling is distributing seahorses from South Australian Seahorse Marine Services www.saseahorse.com . They have barbouri, kuda and whitei available.

ORA is breeding procerus and one of the species in the kuda complex probably..... taneopterus. There are a few species commonly referred to as kuda. If you are interested in knowing the species you have I would be more than happy to help you ID them. Do you have a good clear photo of the horses.

Have you visited www.seahorse.org . There is a Speces ID guide in the Library. There may be a photo you can use to help ID your horses.

Keep us posted on her progress.

Best of luck,

Leslie

[TSquare]

Thank you Leslie for the information. And, after scanning the id's listed in seahorses.org I believe the horses that I have are barbouri and as such am finding that they are finicky eaters and prone to various pathogens. The little female died during the night and I am absolutely sick about it. The other is still quite vivacious and eating well. The next thing I need to address now is whether to add another seahorse with my remaining one. I know they prefer the company of others. I think I will consider ordering from OR this time instead of getting anymore from the LFS.

As far as the eclipse goes, I have it topped to the max. When I read that current is bad, it is hard to "visualize" how much is too much.

I really can't take credit for the LR where the bio wheel would normally go, as I read that other hobbyist have done it! But, I think I'll add some rubble in the place where the filter cartridge goes too!

Again thanks! Perhaps the next attempt will play out better.

Terri

[Leslie]

Hi Terry,

Your welcome! Sorry about the little female.

A good rule of thumb for flow in a seahorse tank is 3 to 5x the tank volume. That Eclipse 12g is rated for a max flow of 150gph. That gives you 12x the tank volume, but I think because of the wide flat return, it seems to be pretty gentle.

A good way to tell if you have to much flow is of course if they are blasted around by it, stay hitched all the time, or cannot catch their food without a lot of effort. If it appears to be to much see you can place something in front of it to break it up a bit.

The barbouri are very spikie and have a stripped snout. They are of the easier species to ID. If your barbouri were indeed CB, then they would be from South Australian Seahorse Marine Services(Tracy and David Warland)......www.saseahorse.com . They supply Sea Dwelling Creatures who supply our lfs. They are sold at about 6 months of age at which time they are sexually mature, but still small. So, yours if CB would have been no bigger than about 3" from crown to tail tip stretched out.

The CB barbouri should be no more trouble than any of the other CBs. Any of the CB species should be healthy, hearty and eat well. They are trained to eat frozen prior to release from the farm and actually have been eating it quite a while prior to release. Tracy uses Hakari brand frozen mysis so she should be used to that., if you can get your hands on some. The problems arise when IME when they are mishandled by the wholesalers, our lfs, or us by being placed into tanks that share water a common water supply with WCs that have not been appropriately quarantined and treated, have a hi water flow making feeding difficult, have bubbles, or kept at temps higher than recommended. I have found that these are the ones that do not do as well as either horses coming straight from the farm or horses that have been placed from the farm into an appropriate separate system. I am not implying that you did anything wrong, just wanted to make a point that sometimes we do. I have, I was buying WCs for a while until I bought 1 to many and they killed off almost an entire tank of my precious CBs. I don't buy them at all anymore. If I should become tempted in a moment of weakness, I would set up a permanent separate tank in another room.

The ORs are great!!! I have several and love them all.

However if you want a same species mate for your horse, Marine Depot Live www.marinedepotlive.com will be stocking Tracy's horses in mid November. Jim Newman is the livestock manager, very conscientious and a great guy. They have a separate system set up just for the horses so they should be very well cared for. He usually lets them settle in a day or 2 and eat before he ships them out to new homes. So that is another option for you if you are hesitant about the lfs and are interested in the same species.

I am lucky one of my lfs has the horses in their own system another does not. I recently took a chance on 4 small CB ORA kuda from the lfs that keeps them in with WCs. I have them quarantined and will not place them in with my other CBs until I am sure they are OK, probably about 6 weeks. I have had them for 2 so far they are doing very well.

Best of luck with your male.

HTH,

Leslie